Time to ponder… what colour are you today and why?

Time to ponder… what colour are you today and why?

I saw something on Twitter yesterday that caught my eye...

No, it wasn't a debate about vaccinations or covid competency.

It was a woman posting about home schooling, she reflected that having the kids at home and trying to work at the same time meant the days were simultaneously both too long and too short.

I love my kids but I'd love them to be at school, learning and playing there instead of being at home endlessly defining my life by their various needs, time tables, times tables and not accepting a ham sandwich or pot noodle "a la desk" is a proper lunch.

The result is a long day that never seems long enough to "get stuff done", but long enough and disrupted enough to feel exhausted at 9:30pm and making progress on work projects is like wading through treacle. It's no wonder I haven't done my tax return yet...

But there are always positives, every Friday James Millar and I jump on Zoom and have a 40 minute chat with a new and interesting guest for the Lockdown Dads podcast. It feels like our own TFI Friday moment, plus we get to learn and share ideas with great people with something to say.

Paul Bulos, Executive, Leadership & Wellbeing Coach and publishing professional joins us to ponder “what colour are you today and why?” We dig into the benefits of lockdowns - including connecting with your kids and we touch on the importance of empathy and understanding the transition between work and home life.

Plus we discuss dad ‘presence’ - how important is secondary school transition, what does the “right train” mean to you and taking time to involve yourself in the things that are important to your children.

Tips include - it’s time for clippers, the Language of gaming and Rachel Vecht’s Circle of Control .

Contents

00:20 Lockdown birthdays are rubbish.

02:30 If you could describe how you are doing as a colour, what would that colour be and why?

02:45 Paul’s Funday Friday - energy and weather = yellow

03:15 Ian, green for Pakistan - ODI cricket tickets for the summer

04:20 James = black… I like black

07:40 Learning self awareness and family dynamics

09:15 Paul’s relationship with his daughter

Photo Credit: @lajaxx via Unsplash

I've always been really close to my kids, but I've got a lot closer and some of that's good and some of that's not so good… one of the key things that really came through that first lockdown, was my relationship with my daughter. She started 13, went into being 14. That's quite an age for young females, lots going on, lots changing. I noticed a lot changing. And just before the lockdown, I was being very honest about it, finding quite difficult.

Our connections seem to be drifting a little bit where we'd been really close before we'd done a lot of things together. She sort of flipped into that proper teenage time and she was beginning to just drift away a bit.

And then we started doing this walk, we live in West London, so we started walking to Osterley Park very early. We didn't often say that much to each other, but the content of what we started to talk about between us was, far more meaningful than they'd ever been. I think we just started to reconnect, but in a different way.

12:25 Helping children to feel safe

14:05 A higher proportion proportion of dads think that the switch to secondary school is a time when they need to be around for their kids.

15:00 How comfortable are you saying, “you know what, I can't make that meeting at 5:30” because if I don't do that, I can't get the train, which means I won't be home for my kids.

15:50 You come home one day and, and they don't come to the door. And I said, no, I can't imagine that.

17:00 The impact of missing your train - my wife knew exactly what time I'd be walking through the door at the end of the working day.

19:30 The transition between work - coming home and re-entry into domestic, household and parenting life.

One of the other things that I found quite interesting is that the children, for first time, in their life really, have seen me working, seeing what that means, what that looks like. If I ever came home from work and I was particularly preoccupied or had a difficult day, they, they never really grasped the concept of that. But now that we're around each other so much more, we have conversations in the day, much more readily around what's going on.

Vice versa for their school day. Some of the things that they're doing and getting up to and how their, some of their stresses and strains, you know, when they've had a frustrating lesson or when you know, they feel like they haven't really been heard in their lesson.

I wouldn't normally hear that stuff, but now I'm hearing it much more regularly. So we're relating in a very different way and understanding and appreciating and having more empathy for each other in a very different way.

21:50 James talks about his workingdads.co.uk building back better agenda.

23:00 Lunchtimes together.

24:00 The power of coaching - examining values and my responsibilities as a parent

25:30 Children as they've become far more cognitive in the world and they've got their own things, you really have to listen to them.

They've got something to say now, whereas when they're little, they're just looking at you almost to repeat what they need to say, but as they've grown up I think probably post 10, 11, they've really got something to say and it's worth listening to.

The speaking is his understanding that he's being listened to. And that requires reflection back to him, all those kinds of things.

27:00 My Daughter has helped me as a coach

One of the important things of being a coach is being able to be in the quiet and be comfortable in that quiet space and allowing that space, not feeling you need to fill it, not feeling you need to rescue, but providing your coachee with that. My daughter is quite quiet and thoughtful and her feelings are quite deep. They don't come to the surface. She doesn't wear a heart on her sleeve. So she's actually helped me in my coaching practice because I have to sit with that space a lot more than I do with my son.

28:30 Tips

• Home haircuts - clippers are back on stock

• Try to understand the language of gaming.

So I remember when he used to collect Pokemon cards, I would walk with him and he would talk to me and I literally didn't understand a single word he said, and and it's now happening with Fortnite. So I have now invested in the time to say to him, could you just explain what you're talking about? Because I realized this could go on a while. I can't have conversations with him that I really don't understand for any longer.

• Rachel Vecht’s Circle of Control. (former guest on the show)

More from Paul Bulos

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulbulos/

http://www.thecompletecoach.co.uk/safe/

https://www.workingdads.co.uk/sink-swim-vital-dads-look-after-themselves/

Photo Credit: @patrickian4 via Unsplash

swapped a house for an apartment in lockdown...

swapped a house for an apartment in lockdown...

Living 50m from Central Park in Upper West side Manhattan sounds incredibly glamorous but not if you've swapped a house for a pandemic apartment in lockdown....

Steve Myall, former deputy features editor of the Daily Mirror and co-host of the highly successful First Time Dads podcast joins James Millar and I as the circle of podcasting is complete.

True story - I first heard James on Steve's podcast, went and bought his book, Dads Don't Babysit, found him on Twitter, and tweeted about how much I liked the content.

We talk shared parental leave, finding space in a big city and why diplomatic status is this year's must have accessory for the Real Brit Dads of New York. Steve talks about what it is like on the ground in New York - elections, parenting and being that elusive species - the hands on stay at home dad.

Watch or listen to any of our episodes here: https://www.inspiringdads.co.uk/lockdown-dads

Contents

01:30 switching a house for an apartment, not realising that we would be in it 24 hours a day.

02:30 Home school and Boris the Cat

05:00 God alone knows what we're going to do at the weekend.

06:00 We had a friend who took some shared parental leave, he was in his shorts, had grown a beard. He was relaxed. He was chilled. And the relationship with his second child looked fantastic.

07:30 Condensed hours and changing how you look at work.

08:00 Moving to New York.

09:30 The First Time Dads Podcast - because we felt that dad's weren't really talking about the emotional stuff.

I still get emails, I still get messages on Twitter, people coming to it, for the first time. I mean, we suffered a little bit because of the sound quality at the beginning, but you know, it was really well received. We were nominated for best podcast in the podcast awards. We had lots of people coming to us wanting to be on it because it had this particular reach to dads and we had no difficulties getting guests at all because it was something new.

13:30 There was talk of a virus in China and then suddenly New York's in this epicenter.

14:30 If you're on the seventh floor of an apartment you can't take them to playgrounds or shop.

16:45 We are fortunate, because my wife works for the UN, we've got a diplomatic status here so that we were able to come back to the UK.

Which a lot of the people that I've met, over here, British, haven't been able to do so. I'm on a WhatsApp group, which is called the “Real Brit Dads of New York”… their visas don't allow them to go backwards and forwards. So they had like 18 months, some of them, without seeing grandparents.

17:45 New York parks v Crystal Palace Park aka "have you got a big dinosaur with its face fallen off?"

19:35 Federal law allows you to have 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave as a dad.

22:00 Not only would it be unusual for me to see a dad taking their kids to this stuff, it would be unusual for me to see a parent because they're all nannies.

And, you know, if I talked to the guys that work on the door here, you know, they don't live in upper west side. If you live in New Jersey, it's a different thing. Or maybe Queens and the Bronx, it's, it's a slightly more community way of parenting, but certainly where we are, it feels like the kids are being looked after rather than being parented.

23:00 It's changed a lot since lockdown - you see a lot more dads doing drop-off and pick up because obviously they're working from home.

26:10 And then the adults all have a shrink, right?

28:00 We drove back into New York as the election result came over the radio and people were out in the street, opening bottles of champagne, cheering on the street corners.

29:00 If you go in Central Park, without wearing a mask outside, you will be shouted at.

30:00 Tips: Watch Soul, eat chocolate oranges and get in touch with mindfulness and the craft box.

Photo Credit: @joshcouchdesign via Unsplash

Family Communications

Our family is ‘unusual’

This post was originally written for the Homeworker Magazine - to learn more and to subscribe www.thehomeworker.com/subscribe

I’m the lead on the full range of parenting activity. I do the school runs (both ends of the day), I do the shopping, the online shopping, the cooking, the after-school activities, the buying of birthday cards and presents. I’m in the school year group WhatsApp group. I make sure we don’t leave all the homework to Sunday afternoon.

Lead parent, but not only parent

Note though that I said I’m the lead. Not to the only one. We’re active joint parents. She’s in the WhatsApp group too. She accesses the homework page, so she knows what needs to be done. She gets the school email too, the swim class email. We decided back in 2009 that I would be the one who would always ‘be there’.  But that decision didn’t abdicate my wife of responsibility.

Tell me what you want, what you really really want.

In my line of work – coaching working Dads, I talk a lot about communication. Both in terms of men communicating with themselves – being honest about what sort of life they actually want to live and then communicating effectively with their partners, together designing a life that works for the whole family.

My clients are usually men who are feeling torn between being a great dad AND having a great career. In many ways they are facing the challenges that women have become used to – How to “have it all.”

Coping by improving communication

The difference is that as a rule, men aren’t so good at communicating to themselves, let alone to others how they really feel about their circumstances. Plenty of men will tackle their challenges by being brave, stoic and ‘the rock’ - exhibiting traits associated with and admired in men.

It isn’t surprising that mental health issues can arise when new fathers face the twin pressures of being a breadwinner and wanting to be actively involved in young children’s lives but feel unable to express that pressure to anyone. Bottling up their emotions and delaying tackling difficult issues.

Honest with yourself

My coaching process begins with being honest with themselves. When I work with men in a coaching and mentoring capacity we start with a “Wheel of Life” before moving onto a thorough understanding of

·         Who they want to Be,

·         What they want to Do and

·         What they want to Have.

Understanding these priorities gives them the start point to have honest conversations with their partners. When we listen to what men and especially working dads actually want, we find flexible working and family friendly work patterns are really important.

“Our study found that nearly two thirds (63%) of dads have requested a change in working pattern since becoming a father.”

https://www.daddilife.com/the-millennial-dad-at-work/

What is mental load, why does it matter?

Men who work flexibly report a far greater understanding of the pressures and challenges that women have more typically faced –  the “mental load”. Mental Load is the activity of organising family life. Even in families where both couples work the load falls disproportionately onto women. The NY Times this a piece called  “What ‘Good’ Dads Get Away With” and pointed out that it would be “another 75 years before men do half the work.”

Mental load matters because it takes time and energy and acts as a barrier to female participation in the workplace. But when Men understand it and experience it first-hand it makes a real difference to rebalancing family life.

Empathy by men for the scale of the unpaid caring role that women in ‘traditional’ relationships typically take on makes a huge difference in a society that considers Prince Harry to be a great dad because he changes nappies. The bar is set painfully low.

But it can be changed.

Family Communications

In the same way that I urge men to open up about the type of caring roles they want to take on, it’s equally important for their partners to tackle the inequalities that can easily build up in family life.

My top tips for effective family communications

1.       Create a safe space for working parents to talk though pressures.

Open and honest communication and for men in particular - make it ok to express the desire to be a caring parent and have a great career. Letting go of the guilt. Creating or reaffirming family objectives.

2.       Actively educate and share the mental load.

Learn more – real examples here:

If you are the keeper of the mental load, share your needs.

Make sure your partner is in the WhatsApp group, on the email list, takes on and owns part of the load. Because if you aren’t talking about the support you need it will cost you

3.       Get organised – use a shared calendar and a to do list.

We use Google calendar and Microsoft To Do

Conclusion

Communication in families is not just about who takes out the bins. It needs to be a more profound interaction about the needs of both parties, so that support for work life balance and help in the home can be both expressed and supported.

As the French novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote  

“love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

This post was originally written for the Homeworker Magazine - to learn more and to subscribe www.thehomeworker.com/subscribe

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